Dinosaur Planet: All Episodes Ranked
Happy holidays, folks! We're bringing out the big guns for this holiday special with a celebration of a great palaeo-documentary close to my heart and has turned 20 years old this month, Discovery Channel's Dinosaur Planet, from 2003!
Dinosaur Planet is one of my all time favourite palaeo-documentary, and for good reasons. They were some of the first docs I saw as a kid, seen via Youtube and while I didn't watch them in full until much later, I loved the introes alone. Also, I had much fun with the Dino Viewer on Discovery's website, seeing both the run cycles and the "dun-dun" sound switching tabs on it made. Oh what joy it brought me, now lost to to mists of time as many a species through time were, an ironic fate considering the subject matter.
As for the series itself, it's in the WWD-style format of being a nature documentrary presentation which I always love, building off the formula When Dinosaurs Roamed America did. The designs of the fauna created by Meteor Studios and the legendary pal Greg Paul featured are excellent and eyecatching. The narration by actor Christian Slater (and written by Mike Caroll) is generally excellent, balancing humour and patheos, like the cool teacher you probz had, while Scott Sampson's talking head segments are fun and informative, providing essential context on the episode to viewers. Even its scientific flaws of the early 2000's, of which there are many, are downright forgivable here (at least for me). Best of all, there's rarely a dull moment in each episode. I can jump around any episode at any time and enjoy what's going on.
But enough praise, let's go through each of the four episodes to see how they stack up in terms of quality (as opposed to my persnal enjoyment) in my humble opinions.
4 - Alpha's Egg
Alpha's Egg stands out as my least favourite episode. I think its the unfocused narrative that treats the carnivores, in particular deutaragonist species Aucasaurus, as oddly monstrous when other episodes don't do it as much, or that I was just influenced by the opinions of others; most likely it was just I never watched it as much as the other eps.
It's hardly all bad though. The sequence where the baby pretty freakin' terrifying, what with the cacophony of Saltasaurus cries as they get Prehistoric Planet'd - and I actually think the episode peaked there. There are also the Carcharodontosaurs (who were based off remains of then-undescribed megaraptorans), who convey size and power well in every scene.
Point is, while not exactly the most memorable or me, and probably one you can skip if you want, Alpha's Egg is generally a good look at the denizens of Maastrichtian South America.
- Accuracy- 8/10
- Aging- 7/10
- Plot - 7/10
- Visuals - 8/10
- Behaviour - 8/10
- Music - 7/10
- Rewatchability - 7/10
- Overall - 7/10
3 - Little Das' Hunt
Getting to the truly memorable episodes I actually like to watch, here's a pretty good one. This story about a family of Daspletosaurus going on a hunt is well paced, and balances focus beween predator and prey. Even the sequences outaide of the Daspletos' hunt, while admittedly a bit disjointed-feeling, do set up the volcano eruption at the end. Plus, any palaeo-work that refrains from using T. rex up until the end is a plus; the ending itself is amazing too and easily one of the best scenes in the entire series.
Special praise must be to the score: series composer Dean Grinsfelder gives some of the best music in not just Dinosaur Planet, but in my opinion any palaeomedia. It's a majestic and fast paced one that really has the classic action-packed western film feel that gets one pumped, with the track "Buck and Blaze" standing out. Have a listen for yourself.
But if there's one thing I don't like about Little Das' Hunt besides any innacuracies (like Scott Sampson insisting in his talking head segment that ceratopsid frills were only for display and not combat - why not both?) and the story flow, it's that the story ends on a downer note in the form of the afromentioned eruption that makes the episode rather hard top care for the characters since you know they'll die. Though even then that's on the small side. I still love it.
- Accuracy- 7/10
- Aging- 7/10
- Plot - 7/10
- Visuals - 8/10
- Behaviour - 8/10
- Music - 10/10
- Rewatchability - 7/10
- Overall - 8/10
2 - Pod's Travels
Pod's Travels is a solid episode, highlighting some obscure fauna from a lesser-known place not many casual audiences know of but palaeonerds do know, specifically Maastrictian Europe. I can still quote the episode's intro by heart ever since 8-year old me saw it on Youtube. Say it with me: "A young raptor called Pod... *roars and screeches* fights for his life in a world of giants."
I admit that many inaccuracies have made the episode aged like milk and takes my enjoyment out a bit, from the overly-simplistic feathers of the raptors, none of the fauna living 80 million years ago, to behaviour like tiny raptors taking down a large animal they would normally never be able to. And of course, the absence of Hatzegopteryx, only described the year before is felt. Not depiction of Hateg is complete without the 'Hatz in my book.
Still, Pod's Travels brings up the oft-rarely talked about subject of insular dwarfism and island diversity, which few other palaeodocs have been about or in the years since; plus, props for being the first large scale repesentation of it in palaeomedia. And watching Pod establish his place on Hateg Island and becoming its top predator makes for a pretty gripping story (and ending on a positive note i why its above Little Das on the list). I even like to think that due to taking place 80 mya as opposed to 66, the episode will lead to the Magyarosaurus in the episode grow in size in response to Pod, and leading an azhdarchid to evolve into a certain giant one. But that's just a theory.... a Palaeomedia Theory!
- Accuracy- 6/10
- Aging- 6/10
- Plot - 8/10
- Visuals - 8/10
- Behaviour - 7/10
- Music - 7/10
- Rewatchability - 9/10
- Overall - 9/10
1 - White Tip's Journey
White Tip's Journey is my favourite Dinosaur Planet episode by far, and indeed . The focus on smaller genera gives it an intimate up close feel as we focus on the pack dynamics and the titular journey of the female lead, and in the process giving one of the best depictions of Velociraptor anywhere. The nature documentary format lends itself well to the episode too with a more low key and subtle plot then the others.
Even the moments where they don't focus on the raptors, like with the Oviraptors (henceforth called Citipati because that's what they are), Prenocephale, and Protoceratops are all compellingly great too and in fact are some of my favourite scenes in the entire series, especially the Citipati courtship and prey ambush, which I actually consider the best rep of oviraptorids anywhere dsue to playing them up as dangerous predators rather then cowardly egg thieves many in the audience at the time thought they are, and so makes the impact feel harder. Again, the focus on smaller species really helps them shine and make them seem larger then life.
Feathers of the coelurosaurs aside (they should be more complex, like the avian kind), the episode has aged pretty well, with all of the animals being close to what are accepted as of the 2020's in both behaviour and appearences (even the topic of pack hunting). White Tip's Journey is a must see in my book, and among Discovery's best output if I say so myself.
- Accuracy- 7/10
- Aging- 7/10
- Plot - 9/10
- Visuals - 9/10
- Behaviour - 8/10
- Music - 9/10
- Rewatchability - 9/10
- Overall - 10/10
So yeah, I love most of Dinosaur Planet. It has introduced many [relatively] obscure taxa to me Pyroraptor to Alvarezsaurus, and is a prime example of the Beebian period's emphasis on naturalism and treating dinosaurs as animals as opposed to monsters (usually), and the stories are so compelling they make up for any aging-induced inaccuracy and thus rewatch value. Props to sirectie Pierre de Lespinois for bringing it all together.
Honestly, my only complaint outside of any inaccuracy I have is that there isn't enough of it. Like you have Asia, Europe, and the Americas in the series, why not go whole hog and have episodes on Africa and Oceania? No doubt it was a lack of budget for such, and that's understandable. There's always fan concepts, and I made ones for both landmasses in the past.
Finally, if you're gonna watch Dinosaur Planet after reading this, here's my recommendation for a watching order, since unlike say the Trilogy of Life there's not fabula going one single way and are rather loose standalone stories.
- Alpha's Egg - Its about birth and growing up, what better place to start?
- Pod's Travels - You can read it as a coming of age story and striking out on your own.
- White Tip's Journey - It represents adulthood and family in my sequence, and has the entire life cycle in it, from birth, to mature adults, to death.
- Little Das' Hunt - The fact that there's a regional extinction at the end and ends with T. rex while the narrator compares every new generation of life as players in a story is so beautiful it's a perfect ending to the series about bignettes of life in the Campanian - provided you skip over Scott Sampson's final talking head segment which is the literal last scene before the episode and interupts the flow of it.
Happy holidays and the New Year folks! I recommend you check back soon for another holiday gift!
See Also
The previous Christmas specials at Mesozoic Mind.
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